THE ORIGINALITY OF THE ARTISTIC STRUCTURE AND THEMATIC PRIORITIES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE KYIV SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING

Abstract

This article investigates the artistic and figurative structures and thematic priorities of representatives of the Kyiv School of Landscape Painting. It is argued that the school constituted a central phenomenon in the Ukrainian art process of the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The study focuses on the dynamics of evolutionary changes within the landscape genre, ranging from a realistic model of nature representation to deeply reflective, lyrically reduced, and metaphysical spatial concepts characteristic of three generations of Kyiv artists. Particular attention is given to the distinctive approach to perceiving landscape as a polystructural cognitive act, in which the subject (viewer) engages with the image across sensory, symbolic, and conceptual layers. The Kyiv School of Landscape Painting established a consistent model of landscape composition, combining historical and artistic continuity, a philosophical interpretation of space, and a distinctive individual authorial intonation, thereby securing its significant role within contemporary Ukrainian visual culture. Using an integrated, interdisciplinary methodology, the formal and plastic organization of landscapes was analyzed, highlighting key features such as asymmetrical compositions, non-frontal perspectives, blurred focal centers, layered spatial arrangements, pastel coloration, and a soft light model. These factors were decisive in producing the contemplative nature of the imagery, evoking a sense of decelerated temporality and a state of inward concentration or meditativeness. The analysis further demonstrates that landscapes, in the reception of the school’s representatives, significantly transcended traditional genre boundaries, emerging as a fully developed cognitive-emotional polysystem oriented toward experiencing space as a state, a temporal event, and a form of quiet, intimate reflection. Particular emphasis is placed on motifs of transition and impersonal nature, including fog, evening and autumnal atmospheres, nameless urban peripheries (marginal elements), fields, and roads. These motifs are activated by artists as metaphors of cultural memory, temporal discreteness (fragmentation), and the inner movement of consciousness.